Discover how clever canines really are

Perceptive Pooches

Perceptive Pooches

Your dog might not be able to talk to you about your bad day at work, but when he lays that little snout on your lap, you sense he just gets it. How much do we reallyknow about what’s going on behind those puppy-dog eyes? “A dog’s mind is roughly equivalent to that of a human two-year-old’s,” says Stanley Coren, PhD, author of The Intelligence of Dogs. “But dogs also have the social consciousness of a teenager.” Put that together with a keen sense of smell, and dogs might be getting a basic read on everything from simple emotions to serious changes in your body chemistry. Read on for eight fascinating facts about the human-dog connection.

1. Dogs sense sadness.

1. Dogs sense sadness.

You swear your dog acts extra-tame and attentive when you’re down in the dumps. Is it all in your head—or are your emotions registering on his radar? In a study published in the journal Animal Cognition, dogs did, in fact, approach people who appeared to be upset more often than those who weren’t—whether it was their owner or a stranger. Scientists are still a few steps away from saying dogs have true empathy for humans—it’s possible they'd react the same way to an equally strong emotion, like raucous laughter—but they’re optimistic. “The dogs in the study would lick all around sad people’s hands or faces, and some sweetly brought over toys,” says study author Deborah Custance, PhD, a psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London. “They behaved in a way we would’ve expected if we interpreted it as empathy.”